The Progressive
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Promotional Template:Infobox magazine The Progressive is a left-leaning American magazine and website covering politics and culture. Founded in 1909 by U.S. senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. and co-edited with his wife Belle Case La Follette, it was originally called La Follette's Weekly and then La Follette's.<ref name="jb">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> In 1929, it was recapitalized and had its name changed to The Progressive.<ref name="jb"/><ref name="tl">"Timeline", The Progressive magazine May 1, 2004.</ref><ref name="baw">Bernard A Weisberger, The La Follettes of Wisconsin: Love And Politics in Progressive America Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. Template:ISBN (p. 282)</ref>
From 1928 until June 1940, The Progressive was co-owned by La Follette family and William Evjue's daily newspaper The Capital Times, after which time full ownership and control was obtained by the La Follettes and Morris H. Rubin, publicity director of Phil La Follette's National Progressives of America political organization, was installed as editor.<ref>Associated Press, "La Follettes in Control of 'Progressive': End to 'Pussy-Footing' Policies is Promised by Two Brothers in Conduct of Weekly," Sheboygan Press, June 26, 1940, p. 1.</ref>
The magazine's headquarters remain in Madison, Wisconsin.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The publication covers civil rights and civil liberties-related topics, immigrant issues, environmentalism, criminal justice reform, and democratic reform.<ref name="Rothschild 2009">Rothschild, Matthew (2009). Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive Magazine, 1909–2009. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Template:ISBN.</ref> Its current acting and managing editor is David Boddiger.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Previous editors included La Follette Sr., Belle Case La Follette, their son Robert Jr., William Evjue, Morris Rubin, Erwin Knoll, Matthew Rothschild, Bill Lueders and Ruth Conniff.
HistoryEdit
La Follette's WeeklyEdit
On the first page of its first issue, La Follette wrote this introduction to the magazine:
In the course of every attempt to establish or develop free government, a struggle between Special Privilege and Equal Rights is inevitable. Our great industrial organizations [are] in control of politics, government, and natural resources. They manage conventions, make platforms, [and] dictate legislation. They rule through the very men elected to represent them. The battle is just on. It is young yet. It will be the longest and hardest [battle] ever fought for Democracy. In other lands, the people have lost. Here we shall win. It is a glorious privilege to live in this time, and have a free hand in this fight for government by the people.<ref name="Rothschild 2009"/>
Some of the campaigns La Follette's Weekly engaged in were non-intervention in World War I,<ref name="tl" /> opposition to the Palmer Raids in the early 1920s, and calling for action against unemployment during the Depression. La Follette's wife, Belle, edited the publication's women's section, and also wrote articles for the publication condemning racial segregation.<ref name="jb" /> An early associate editor was the writer Herbert Quick.<ref name="OILGUS">Template:Cite book</ref>
The ProgressiveEdit
During the 1940s, The Progressive adopted an anti-Stalinist view of the Soviet Union.<ref name="pfb">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
During the early 1940s, the magazine argued that the United States should stay out of World War II.<ref name="tl" /> Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Progressive declared its support for the American war effort.<ref name="tl" /> However, The Progressive also condemned the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, in contrast to both The Nation and The New Republic's support for the bombing.<ref name="pfb" /> The Progressive reprinted an essay from The Christian Science Monitor by Richard Lee Strout, arguing that by using the bombs, "The United States has incurred a terrible responsibility to history which now, unfortunately, can never be withdrawn".<ref name="pfb" />
In 1947, The Progressive's editors announced they were suspending publication. However, after readers raised $40,000 to save the magazine, The Progressive returned as a monthly magazine issued as a non-profit venture.<ref name="jb" /><ref name="tl" />
In the 1950s, The Progressive criticized McCarthyism, although the magazine agreed that the U.S. government had the right to blacklist members of the Communist Party.<ref name="jb" /> The Progressive issued a special issue criticizing McCarthy, McCarthy: A Documented Record in 1954; sections from the issue were read aloud in the U.S. Senate, and it became the magazine's best-selling issue.<ref name="tl" /><ref>Robert Griffin, The Politics Of Fear : Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Second Edition). Amherst, the University of Massachusetts press, 1987. Template:ISBN (p. 187).</ref> The Progressive also criticized U.S. nuclear policy and clandestine CIA activity in this period.<ref name="jb" />
In the 1960s, the magazine published five articles by Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin's open letter, "My Dungeon Shook - Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation", the first section of The Fire Next Time. The Progressive also denounced U.S. involvement in Indochina.<ref name="jb" />
In 1984, The Progressive published "Behind the Death Squads" by Allan Nairn, a critique of U.S. policy in El Salvador.<ref name="tl" />
The Progressive opposed the Persian Gulf War, accusing the George H. W. Bush administration of rejecting any options for peaceful negotiation of the crisis. While condemning Saddam Hussein's government for its abuse of human rights, it accused the Bush administration of hypocrisy for not taking action against other governments that also abused human rights.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The magazine also opposed the second Iraq War.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
United States v. Progressive, Inc.Edit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} In 1979Template:Anchor, The Progressive gained national attention for its article by Howard Morland, "The H-bomb Secret: How we got it and why we're telling it", which the U.S. government suppressed for six months because it contained classified information. The magazine prevailed in a landmark First Amendment case of prior restraint, United States v. Progressive, Inc..<ref name="jb" />
2011 Wisconsin protestsEdit
Located a few blocks from the Wisconsin State Capitol, The Progressive covered the protests that began in February 2011 in response to Governor Scott Walker's Wisconsin budget repair bill. Madison Magazine named The Progressive's political editor Ruth Conniff as one of its Editors' Choice in 2011 for her "frontline dispatches from inside and outside the State Capitol and the courtroom across the street".<ref name="Madison Magazine">Template:Cite journal</ref>
100th anniversaryEdit
For its 100th year in print, the magazine published a book featuring "some of the best writing in The Progressive from 1909 to 2009"<ref name="Mike Ivey">Template:Cite news</ref> titled Democracy in Print, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
CirculationEdit
With a fall to 27,000 subscribers in 1999, in April 2004, following the Iraq War, The Progressive's circulation reached a record 65,000.<ref name="Mike Ivey" /> By 2010, circulation had settled near 47,000.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Progressive solicits gifts, grants, and sponsorships, publicizing donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per calendar year, according to its website.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Notable contributorsEdit
Throughout the years, The Progressive has published articles by Jane Addams, James Baldwin, Louis Brandeis, Noam Chomsky, Clarence Darrow, John Kenneth Galbraith, Charles V. Hamilton,<ref name="tpa">Template:Cite journal</ref> Nat Hentoff, Seymour Hersh,<ref name="tpa" /> Molly Ivins, June Jordan, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., Sidney Lens,<ref name="tpa2">Advertisement for The Progressive, Mother Jones magazine, August 1976, p.4.</ref> Jack London, Milton Mayer, A.J. Muste, George Orwell, Marcus Raskin,<ref name="tpa2" /> Bertrand Russell,<ref>Bertrand Russell, "Who Is It That Wants War?" The Progressive, September 24, 1932.</ref> Edward Said, Carl Sandburg, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, I.F. Stone, Norman Thomas, George Wald,<ref name="tpa2" /> James Wechsler<ref name="tpa" /> and Howard Zinn.
It has also published liberal politicians such as Russ Feingold, J. William Fulbright, Dennis Kucinich, George McGovern, Bernie Sanders, Adlai Stevenson, and Paul Wellstone.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>